DDR motherboard !!

The 200Mhz Athlons and 266Mhz Athlons are exactly the same except for the multiplier setting. If you unlock a 200Mhz Athlon and reduce the multiplier then voila!, you have a 266Mhz Athlon.

Two respected hardware sites have both published that 200Mhz Athlons and 266Mhz Athlons are exactly the same except for their multiplier:

<i>The BIOS-setup allows the alteration of the processor bus clock in small steps and it also lets you overclock the SocketA processors once you closed the L1-bridges on the CPU. Unfortunately MSI forgot to include an option to lower the CPU-multiplier, which would be very useful for owners of 100 MHz FSB Athlon or Duron processors that want to run their CPUs at 133 MHz FSB.</i>
<A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q1/010104/amd-133fsb-03.html" target="_new">http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q1/010104/amd-133fsb-03.html</A>

<i>You can immediately tell that two of these CPUs, the 1GHz and 1.2GHz parts, overlap with 100MHz FSB parts while the 1.13GHz Athlon is a 133MHz FSB-only chip. The only thing that sets the 1GHz and 1.2GHz CPUs apart from their 100MHz FSB counterparts is their clock multiplier. While the 100MHz FSB Athlon running at 1.2GHz has a 12.0x clock multiplier (12 x 100 = 1200MHz), the 133MHz FSB version only has a 9.0x multiplier (9 x 133 = 1200MHz). Obviously if you have a motherboard that can get around the clock multiplier lock this won’t pose a problem to you, but if not, then you will want to make sure that you only use a 133MHz FSB CPU on an AMD 760 board.</i>
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1344&p=3" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1344&p=3</A>

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While the 100MHz FSB Athlon running at 1.2GHz has a 12.0x clock multiplier (12 x 100 = 1200MHz), the 133MHz FSB version only has a 9.0x multiplier (9 x 133 = 1200MHz).
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I thought the 1.2GHz Athlon has 200MHz FSB. Maybe I'm confused but I'd rather ask.

Wouldn't they have tested it before printing such a claim? I respect Tom's and Anandtech because they do their homework and their reviews are top notch. And I will take their word for it until someone can prove them wrong. Does anyone here have a good quality 133Mhz Athlon board that can verify whether or not the 100Mhz DDR Athlons run at 133Mhz DDR?

Yoda:

I don't argue that referring to a 200MHz or 266MHz bus is in fact incorrect. The "B" and "C" parts are actually a double-data rate 100 or 133MHz bus, respectively. But in my last reply to Novice, I didn't want to get into those technicalities and confuse him/her any more. That wasn't the point of his/her confusion.

Responding to your comment... "Wouldn't they have tested it before printing such a claim? I respect Tom's and Anandtech because they do their homework and their reviews are top notch. And I will take their word for it until someone can prove them wrong." Of course they tested it. I'm not suggesting that Tom, Anand, or any T-Bird reviewer/tester aren't telling us exactly what they did and experienced. What I am suggesting is that EACH AMD's 266MHz "C" part is QC-TESTED to operate RELIABLY at 133MHz DDR (266MHz FSB), whereas EACH 200MHz "B" part is QC-TESTED to operate reliably at just 100MHz DDR (200MHz FSB). That doesn't mean that the "B" part won't operate at the speed of the "C" part. I'm implying that the "B" part isn't subjected to 133MHZ QUALITY CONTROL, so chances are that some percentage of those parts will not operate reliably at that higher clock rate.

Peace!

Well, I guess that's what these forums are all about. Differences of opinion, without disrespect for one another's right to express them.

I need to say that in no way did I intend to impune the integrity of TomsHardware or the AnandTech staffs. While at times they may not address issues that some of us would have liked discussed, overall they really do a great job - even if they do favor AMD over Intel (just joking)!

I interpreted novices' question differently then you, so I responded to the question as I understood it.

Your right the new 266Mhz Athlons will be tested at the new FSB setting, but the FSB of the processor is very rarely the limiting factor in overclocking the FSB as a whole. It's usually the memory, PCI, AGP, nothbridge chip, or in the case of Athlon mobos, the clock generator. I would imagine only a <i>very, very</i> small number of 200Mhz Athlons couldn't run at 266Mhz. Well, we'll see within the next few months.

Is there anywhere I can go to read on how to do this.

As to your last queston, I fully agree with Yoda's reply.

Unless you already purchased the GA-7DX, I would suggest that you consider MSI's MS-6341, a more feature-rich board. BTW, where are you buying the DDR PC2100 SDRAM and how much are you paying for it?

I paid $111 for 128 megs of PC2100 from Crucial- however those were engineering samples and I bought them a long time ago. They work fine. I'm glad I did too because as soon as DDR memory hit the market- it skyrocketed.

-MP Jesse

I'm in a similar boat. i bought PC-2100 DDR memory and a DDR capable SocketA board before realizing that I needed a version of the Thunderbird that no one seems to have.

So my question is, if I get a 200Mhz FSB version of the Thunderbird, and don't want to risk overclocking it to 266, can I still use my pc-2100 ddr ram? I'm pretty sure the motherboard supports both fsb clock rates.

Just to clarify, the "severe" performance loss means that your PC2100 memory will be running at PC1600 instead.

I just mention this because the way Tempus made it sound, was that you needed PC1600 memory or you'd get worse performance (with the PC2100 memory) which wouldn't be the case.

Of course I very likely misinterpreted what Tempus said.

Hrm...what are the odds I can run my green meanie tbird 750 at 133 fsb on a kt7 raid?

The MB was the IWill KA266R which I found at www.adamant.com...paid $207. Built-in IDE RAID... I'm intending to do a RAID 0+1 system.

The memory was from AccessMicro.com, Zeus PC2100 DDR, 256Meg stick, $379. This was the first thing I bought, thinking it would be the memory that would be hard to get hold of. I may well end up kicking myself as the prices come down...especially if it is a month before I can get the friggin processor and have a working system, and the price of drops a lot in that time.